This story
was taken from Bulatlat, the Philippines's alternative weekly
newsmagazine (www.bulatlat.com, www.bulatlat.net, www.bulatlat.org).
Vol. VI, No. 6, March 12-18, 2006
An Alta Village Fights for Life
Barangay Diteki, a forest village in San Luis, Aurora,
has battled mining and logging
companies for years, and the 49 Alta (an indigenous people’s group) families who
live in this sitio are now bearing the hardship of being outcasts in
their ancestral land. San Luis, Aurora –
Ama Duwit and Ina Miling, an elderly Alta
couple, sat in a corner of their small hut beside the river in this former
logging camp in Barangay Diteki, a forest village in San Luis, Aurora (230 kms.
northwest of Manila). This village has battled
mining and logging companies for years, and the 49 Alta (an indigenous people’s
group) families who live in this sitio are now bearing the hardship of
being outcasts in their ancestral land. “Dati kaming
palipat-lipat ng tirahan. Pero noong makapagtrabaho si Ama dito sa logging
nagpirmi na kami. Ngayon, ako ay bulag na at matanda na kami, napakahirap ng
buhay” (We used to move from one
place to another. When Ama was hired by the logging company, we settled down.
Now that I am blind and we are already old, life has become very difficult), Ina
Miling recounts in fluent Tagalog. In another home, a
one-month-old baby boy who died just the night before lies on a bed surrounded
by grieving relatives. Strangely, the mother and
the rest of clan do not know the cause of the baby’s death. Microcosm Mayeth Corpuz, 38,
secretary general of the Samahan ng mga Katutubo sa Sierra Madre (SKSM,
Organization of Indigenous Peoples in the Sierra Madre) says that the village is
a microcosm of how indigenous people’s groups in the province have fared. “What we see here is
typical of what happened to other Alta communities. After being enticed to work
for the logging company and the company departs, we are left with hardly any
means to survive,” Corpuz, a full-blooded Alta, told GLNS. Corpuz said that the
logging company owned by a certain Ongkiko started operations in the mid-70s. The company left more than
a decade later, leaving in its wake a denuded forest that used to be the
exclusive domain of the Altas, as well as other indigenous people’s groups in
the province: the Ilongots, Dumagats and Igorots, Corpuz said. “We are prohibited from
getting forest products, even for subsistence. Even charcoal making from felled
trees is banned. If we are caught, these are confiscated. Many are forced to
deal with licensed businessmen who operate with hardly any restrictions,” Corpuz
said. “We feel that everything
has been taken away from us and that we are outcasts in our land,” Corpuz said. Logged-over Aurora lies on the eastern
edge of the Sierra Madre mountain range in Central Luzon facing the Pacific
Ocean. About 270,000 has. or 87 percent of its 310,000 has. total land area is
classified as forest. The rest is lowland and suited mainly for agriculture. A report from the Multi-Sectoral
Action Group (MSAG-Aurora), a local church-based organization shows that in
1951, the province was “totally covered with forest on both mountains and
lowlands except in settlements and areas under cultivation.” Aerial surveys conducted in
1989 reveal that almost the entire forest area has been logged-over, the MSAG
report said. Today, it is hard to
pinpoint an area in the province that can still be considered virgin forest,
according to Alfonso Van Zijl, an MSAG official. Large-scale logging for
export in Aurora started in 1960s and into the early 80s. Nine logging companies
still operate today and hold either timber license agreements (TLA), special
private land timber license (SPLTL) or integrated forest management agreements (IFMA)
that cover 256, 718 has. in the towns of San Luis, Dingalan, Dipaculao,
Dinalungan, Dilasag and Casiguran, MSAG records show. The biggest of these, and
their permit expiry dates are the Inter-Pacific Forest Resource Corporation (IFRC)-
February 2010, Industries Development Corp. (IDC)- December 2026, Verdant
Agro-Forest Development Corp. (VAFDC)- March 2010 and Pacific Timber Export
Corp. (PATECO)- December 2006. The four biggest companies’
logging permits cover a combined area of 184,000 has. or 68 percent of Aurora’s
total forest area. The nine logging companies cover 91 percent of the province’s
forest area. Clear waters Ama Duwit recalls that when
he was young, run-off water going to the rivers is clear and there is no
siltation even during the strongest downpours. Flood or landslides were unheard
of then, he told GLNS. “But as the big trees were
removed by loggers, the soil loosened-up and run-off water became murky and
muddy. That is why there is flood and landslides today,” he said. The effect of unabated
logging is now wreaking havoc on the people of Aurora. In November 2004, 112
people died and 22 remained missing in massive flash floods and landslides that
occurred after a series of typhoons hit the Pacific coast. Some P240 million in crops,
livestock and infrastructure were lost in the towns of Baler, San Luis, Maria
Aurora, Dingalan, Dipaculao, Dinalungan, Dilasag and Casiguran. The disaster affected
14,804 families or 43% of the province’s population, and 14,225 has. of crops
were destroyed. In December 1995,
typhoon-induced flash floods submerged 26 villages in three towns: Baler, San
Luis and Maria Aurora and caused the death of 14 people. Barangay Diteki is
consistently on the list of villages affected by the disasters. By all indications, the
lives of the people in Aurora hang by a thread because of unabated logging. In December 2005 and
January of this year flash floods again occurred replicating the damage of the
past years. Landslides buried in mud a
portion of Barangay Villa, a village adjacent to Diteki, and closed the main
highway (Cabanatuan-Bongabon-Baler road) leading to the province. The road is
still closed as of this date. Omni As if the danger due to
logging is not enough, 31 mining companies have applied for concessions in
Aurora to the government since 1995 when RA 7942, or the New Philippine Mining
Act was passed by the Philippine Congress, The applications cover
277,336 has. or 90 percent of the province’s total land area and 7,000 has.
beyond the 270,000 has. classified as mountainous or hilly. Two of these have been
approved by the government—IDC, the logging company earlier cited, and Omni
Mines Development Corp. (Omni) — while the rest are pending mainly due to
opposition by affected sectors. Omni is part of Omni Group
of Companies which has filed 19 mining applications under at least 12 different
names, according to a fact sheet of MSAG-Aurora. The Omni group has also
submitted six (6) Mineral Production Sharing Agreement (MPSA) applications and
14 exploration applications covering some 203,107 has. or 39 percent of the
total area under application. The Omni group is
controlled by Broken Hills Proprietary Minerals International Explorations Inc.
(BHP), an Australian firm and Chase Mineral Resources Ltd. (CMR), a Canadian
corporation, according to documents obtained by MSAG. BHP is one of the biggest
mining companies in the world with $18.352 billion in sales and $27.592 in
assets as of 1998. It is listed as the 41st
biggest company in Asia, the 7th biggest company outside Japan and is the
largest company in Australia. “What we see here is that
foreign businesses interests are out to extract our mineral resources and
further ravage the land,” Van Zijl told GLNS. Resistance Corpuz said that their
organization has been involved in protests over the intrusion of logging and
mining companies in their communities. In March 1995, residents of
Diteki observed helicopters owned by Omni circling the forests near their
village, she recounts. A few months later, they
learned that Omni has filed an application for exploration permit to the mayor’s
office of San Luis and Maria Aurora towns. Immediately, SKSM, MSAG and
five other organizations filed a protest before the panel of arbitrators of the
Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB) of the Department of Environment and Natural
Resources (DENR). With persistent lobbying
and protest actions, they were able to convince the municipal council of San
Luis to pass a resolution opposing the application on October 11, 1995. The Aurora provincial board
passed a similar resolution on April 2, 1996, Corpuz said. Even Senator Edgardo Angara
and Congresswoman Bella Angara-Castillo joined the opposition to Omni through
letters they sent to the DENR, and a petition signed by more than 15,500 Aurora
residents was also submitted to the DENR, she said. But on February 2, 1996,
the DENR granted the exploration permit to Omni. At one point, Corpuz
recounts, Alta residents of Diteki physically drove away a team of Omni
employees. “A helicopter owned by Omni
landed in our village one day. Our members, holding placards and streamers
approached it and asked its occupants to leave. They attached the placards and
streamers to the helicopter until the employees finally relented and went away,”
Corpuz said. Finally on July 1997, they
were told by Salvador Martin, director of the MGB that the application of Omni
has been cancelled. On February 2001, Omni
asked the DENR to renew its application but the move was again met with protests
and petitions. “The fight is not over yet.
The Arroyo government is openly advocating for full-scale mining operations by
foreigners in our country. We will continue to resist,” Corpuz said. To date, not a single
mining company is able to operate in the province. Gitnang Luson News Service
/ Posted by Bulatlat © 2006 Bulatlat
■
Alipato Publications Permission is granted to reprint or redistribute this article, provided its author/s and Bulatlat are properly credited and notified.
BY ABNER BOLOS
GITNANG LUSON NEWS SERVICE
Posted by Bulatlat
Ina Miling is blind. She could not tell how old she is nor can her husband but
villagers guess they are well beyond 70 years. They survive on dole-out from kin
and neighbours.